According to the new DeCurtis bio, this low-movement ad was what the director came up with at the last minute, when Lou showed up for the shoot too wasted to perform the original and more elaborate idea:

Sheila Klein wrote:According to the new DeCurtis bio, this low-movement ad was what the director came up with at the last minute, when Lou showed up for the shoot too wasted to perform the original and more elaborate idea:

The chorus of the song includes the lyrics "ride, Sally, ride" — a phrase that became fodder for newspaper headlines in 1983, when astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. The Lou Reed song "Ride Sally Ride", which quotes these lyrics throughout, is the first track on his 1974 album Sally Can't Dance. The same lyric is found in "Dance to the Music" by Sly & The Family Stone in 1968 and in the children's song "Sally The Camel".

The chorus of the song includes the lyrics "ride, Sally, ride" — a phrase that became fodder for newspaper headlines in 1983, when astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. The Lou Reed song "Ride Sally Ride", which quotes these lyrics throughout, is the first track on his 1974 album Sally Can't Dance. The same lyric is found in "Dance to the Music" by Sly & The Family Stone in 1968 and in the children's song "Sally The Camel".

Well spotted. So Lou borrowed it from Wilson Pickett, Sly or the children's song... and cleverly changed it's meaning. Not the first time he's done that.

In the Reed song, is it
Ride, Sally, ride?
Ride Sally, ride?
or Ride Sally Ride?

Thanks for the gems about Ride Sally Ride. I'd read all that stuff on the net of course ... it's just that I thought Sally Can't Dance was released in 1984, ten years too late, when it would have made sense. My dotage approaches and I have nowhere to hide.